Neil Gaiman is a hugely talented guy with fingers in a lot of different pies. Aside from his long history of penning iconic comics and novels, the acclaimed author and writer just brought The Sandman to the screen for Netflix. One thing he absolutely is not responsible for, however, is Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, with Gaiman having precisely zero input in anything to do with the series. And yet the internet can’t shift the belief that he’s its secret showrunner.
Gaiman took to Twitter today to try to clear up the confusion once and for all. The Good Omens scribe shared a screenshot from an article which featured the phrase “Neil Gaiman’s The Lord of the Rings.” While it probably came as a pleasant surprise to see one of the most legendary works of fantasy fiction attributed to him, Gaiman felt the need to disabuse people of this false notion.
“It’s sweet to see it described as “Neil Gaiman’s Lord of the Rings” but I really & truly cross my heart word of honour don’t have anything to do with it,” he declared. “Sandman, yes. Good Omens yes. Anansi Boys yes. Lucifer and Dead Boy Detectives, kind of. LoTR nope.”
The confusion stems from the fact that Gaiman has been vocally defending Rings of Power from sexist and racist “fans” on social media, something which he had previously had to do with his own Sandman series. This led to angry trolls hitting back at him, claiming he had “ruined” their favorite franchise. Somewhere along the way it seems this misapprehension reached a wider audience, but hopefully Gaiman’s tweet should help fix this mistaken belief before it goes any further.
Like Gaiman says, though, he is involved with a range of adaptations of things he actually did write, including Good Omens season two and HBO Max’s upcoming Dead Boy Detectives. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, meanwhile, just released a new, totally Gaiman-free, episode this Friday on Amazon Prime Video.
